The Zoning Give-A-Way of Unincorporated Greenburgh

It’ll be about 8 months before the 2015 elections for Mr Feiner and his two Board members. A lot of damage might be done during that time by those already in office. Until such time that the incumbents are voted out of office, we will probably continue to see a wholesale assault on all open space in Unincorporated Greenburgh! The Worthington Woodlands and Secor Homes Civic Associations, as well as others sympathetic to their plight, have been trying for almost five years to get Mr Feiner and his two Town Board members to abandon his desire to serve his friend Martin Hewitt with a drastic zoning change in a residential neighborhood for a commercial venture. This venture promises less than half the revenue in taxes over what new residential housing would bring if it was built there instead of being utilized for which the property was originally zoned. It eludes us as to why Mr Feiner would simply ignore the obvious return the Town could get by adhering to the existing zoning over changing it to a lesser valued project?

The southern side of Secor Road finds Ferncliff Cemetery proposing an expansion of their cemetery almost directly into the Secor Homes community. On the northern side, neighbors in the homes on Jean and Jennifer Lanes have the Golf Driving Range owned by the Vizioli family. It has been there sedately for years and is now threatening to compromise the area with expansion. The Vizioli family wants to convert most of the property from a quaint and unobtrusive golf driving range into a megaplex sports site with a 5-story airplane hangar-sized building, fields, lights, noise, increased traffic, parking and an almost around-the-clock operation in a partnership with GameOn 365. Since originating this massive dream-scheme, Mr Hewitt appears to have cycled through all of his previous partners. It appears he’s struggling to find a way to circumvent the existing zoning and cultivate investors from an evaporating pool of candidates.

If these two projects are allowed to move forward, coupled with Westchester Greenhouses, spanning the entire width of Jennifer Lane, with pollution to the area via their outdoor wood boilers, the once residential suburban community will be overwhelmed and boxed in by large commercial enterprises. There are some who believe Secor Road might become a major access roadway, particularly if Jean Lane, which connects to the Vizioli property via Jennifer Lane, is ever opened up to allow traffic. It’s one of any neighborhood’s worst nightmare.

ABG has previously written about Mr Feiner’s desire to hand over the property vis-à-vis a Zoning Code change Mr Hewitt will need to take his paper company from napkin-conception to birth. Unconvincingly, Mr Feiner and his Board made the argument that they recently disallowed two projects from proceeding and that they haven't made a decision about this one. What? Wait a minute! How can any of the three Board members say with a straight face that they haven’t made a decision for or against this project when they have been stumping for GameOn 365 since 2010? Another lie from Mr Feiner and his two Board members. The fix has been in since the beginning and saying otherwise is offensive to us all!

One of these other two projects would have adversely affected the Villages of Ardsley and Dobbs Ferry. Make no mistake, Councilwoman Juettner resides in Ardsley and brings a good number of votes to the Feiner ticket. And that’s the real story here: votes! Obviously, that wasn’t mentioned in this week’s Work Session. The second proposal that was denied was, some believe, a phony one from the beginning. It was one that would allow the Feiner camp to say, "No," and appear to be concerned for the Town. The public was informed that both proposals were not being entertained by the Board because it would over-tax our infrastructure. After 22-years of neglect by various administrations under Mr Feiner, now he’s worried about infrastructure?

The second project was a proposed assisted living facility off of Payne Street in the North Elmsford section of Unincorporated Greenburgh. The plan there was to build a multistory complex on a triangular strip of land between the Croton aqueduct and the Sprain Brook Parkway at the north end of High Street and North Lawrence Avenue. While their claims of limited traffic through this residential neighborhood was purported to be minimal, surrounding space on this postage sized parcel would not be big enough for emergency vehicles to access and egress. But saying it would tax our infrastructure was once again disingenous from the start. Yet, it provided a vehicle for a portion of the Town Board to use as a means to offer balance to the uninitiated in the Town. It is nothing more than pure political calculation at it's best. By the way, this project would literally be in Councilman Morgan's backyard. Is it any wonder why it was denied?

So how can an almost 24-7 sports operation not be taxing to our infrastructure? Mr Feiner, already found guilty of discriminating against the Fortress Bible Church, said the increased traffic from the Church and school was the reason he was against Fortress Bible Church’s application. He never said the real reason, which we believe was to keep this church from building in his friend’s back yard. The Fortress Bible Church was awarded a $6.5 MILLION settlement being paid by us, the taxpayers, for Mr Feiner’s illegal actions! So for three projects in three different Unincorporated locations in the Town, reasons were given by the Board against these projects that when those same reasons were made by the residents near this Dobbs Ferry Road location, only to be summarily dismissed by Messrs. Feiner, Morgan and Jones. How is the residents’ concerns for congestion, over-crowding, over-burdened infrastructure hours of operation, etc., any different than the reasons used by Messrs. Feiner, Morgan and Jones? Votes.

Rome is burning. The Town’s infrastructure has been slowly decaying while Mr Feiner and his Board fiddles for developers. They continue with gifts for their preferred developers while ignoring residents in these respective neighborhoods and do as they please. The upcoming elections hold no promise of us seeing positive change in our Town – or does it? Our prediction is that these three will be re-elected as the Democratic faithful and the willfully ignorant will easily fall prey to Mr Feiner’s lies and hypocracy. The media will be complicit as well and speak of his (pseudo) open government policies, work with the seniors, the poor and on and on and on. His media campaign blitz will become non-stop. Ultimately, running unopposed, he will garner some 7-9,000 votes, even though the Emperor has no clothes. This must end! Only then will we have A Better Greenburgh.